Practical Exercises in Elementary MeteorologyWard, Robert DeCourcy
Science
Practical Exercises in Elementary Meteorology
Ward, Robert DeCourcy
Meteorology
_A._ =Cyclones.=——Provide yourself with a sheet of tracing paper about
half as large as the daily weather map. Draw a straight line across the
middle of it; mark a dot at the center of the line, the letter _N_ at one
end, and the letter _S_ at the other. Place the tracing paper over a
weather map on which there is a fairly well enclosed center of low
pressure (_low_), having the dot at the center of the _low_, and the line
parallel to the nearest meridian, the end marked _N_ being towards the top
of the map. When thus placed, the paper is said to be _oriented_. Trace
off the isobars which are nearest the center. In most cases the 29.80-inch
isobar furnishes a good limit, out to which the isobars may be traced.
Continue this process, using different weather maps, until the lines on
the tracing paper begin to become too confused for fairly easy seeing.
Probably 15 or 20 separate areas of low pressure may be traced on to the
paper. It is important to have all parts of the cyclonic areas represented
on your tracing. If most of the isobars you have traced are on the
southern side of cyclones central over the Lakes or lower St. Lawrence, so
that the isobars on the northern sides are incomplete, select for your
further tracings weather maps on which the cyclonic centers are in the
central or southern portions of the United States, and therefore have
their northern isobars fully drawn.
When your tracing is finished you have a _composite portrait_ of the
isobars around several areas of low pressure. Now study the results
carefully. Draw a heavy pencil or an ink line on the tracing paper, in
such a way as to enclose the average area outlined by the isobars. This
average area will naturally be of smaller dimensions than the outer
isobars on the tracing paper, and of larger dimensions than the inner
isobars, and its form will follow the general trend indicated by the
majority of the isobars, without reproducing any exceptional shapes.
Write out a careful description of the average _form_, _dimensions_
[measured by a scale of miles or of latitude degrees (70 miles = 1 degree
about)] and _gradients_ of these areas of low pressure, noting any
tendency to elongate in a particular direction; any portions of the
composite where the gradients are especially strong, weak, etc.
_B._ =Anticyclones.=——This investigation is carried out in precisely the
same manner as the preceding one, except that anticyclones (_highs_) are
now studied instead of cyclones. The isobars may be traced off as far away
from the center as the 30.20-inch line in most cases. When, however, the
pressure at the center is exceptionally high, it will not be necessary to
trace off lower isobars than those for 30.30, or 30.40, or sometimes 30.50
inches.
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